Effect of natural garlic essential oil on chickens with artificially infected Eimeria tenella.

Chicken coccidiosis is a kind of parasitic protozoosis caused by Eimeria parasitizing in the chicken intestinal epithelial cells. Eimeria tenella is considered as a significantly virulent and harmful parasite. At present, drug resistance remains a major problem and a large number of drug residues have been found to be produced in the treatment of the disease. Hence, novel strategies are needed to avoid the harmful effects caused by the generation of various chemical drug residues to the human body and also reduce the economic loss caused by coccidiosis to the chicken industry. In this study, natural garlic essential oil was used to control Eimeria tenella infection. The anticoccidial index (ACI) was calculated according to the clinical symptoms, body weight gain, oocyst excretion and cecal lesions. The immune organ index and serum biochemical indexes were measured to verify the possible anticoccidial effects. The results showed that: compared with the infected group, continuous feeding of different doses of natural garlic essential oil could significantly reduce the clinical symptoms, cecal lesions, the number of oocysts, but increase the weight of sick chickens, and effectively improve the intestinal functions. Moreover, compared with diclazuril control group, 0.06 mL/L garlic essential oil exhibited similar anticoccidial index. The content of immune organ index, serum biochemical index IgM, IgG and IgA in 0.06 mL/L garlic essential oil group was the highest, which indicated that garlic essential oil had a significant tendency to improve the immune function of the chickens. This study also showed that the natural garlic essential oil exhibited the same beneficial effects as that of diclazuril on chicken coccidiosis, and the anti-coccidiosis index of 0.06 mL/L garlic essential oil was favorable. Thus based on the above evidences and its relatively low cost, garlic essential oil can be potentially be used as an efficient anti parasitic drug.

Near-infrared dye-loaded magnetic nanoparticles as photoacoustic contrast agent for enhanced tumor imaging.

Objective: Photoacoustic (PA) tomography (PAT) has attracted extensive interest because of its optical absorption contrast and ultrasonic detection. This study aims to develop a biocompatible and biodegradable PA contrast agent particularly promising for clinical applications in human body. Methods: In this study, we presented a PA contrast agent: 1, 2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine- N-[methoxy (polyethylene glycol)] (DSPE-PEG)-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with indocyanine green (ICG). We used ICG and SPIO NPs because both drugs are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Given the strong absorption of near-infrared laser pulses, SPIO@DSPE-PEG/ICG NPs with a uniform diameter of ~28 nm could significantly enhance PA signals. Results: We demonstrated the contrast enhancement of these NPs in phantom and animal experiments, in which the in vivo circulation time of SPIO@DSPE-PEG/ICG NPs was considerably longer than that of free ICG. These novel NPs also displayed a high efficiency of tumor targeting. Conclusions: SPIO@DSPE-PEG/ICG NPs are promising PAT contrast agents for clinical applications.

[High-throughput functional screening using CRISPR/Cas9 system].

High-throughput screening, a powerful tool for the discovery of functionally important genes responsible for certain phenotypes, is performed according to loss-of-function or gain-of-function strategies. RNAi technology or knockout approaches have been widely used in high throughput screening due to their advantages of ease use, low cost and so on. However, imcomplete knockdown activity and off-target effect hindered their utility. More recently, CRISPR/Cas9 technology is becoming a robust tool for genome editing in diverse cells or animals, since it could generate a gene mutation in a target-specific manner. In this review, we first summarize the characterization of CRISPR/Cas9 and make comparison with traditional genetic tools, then describe recent achievements of genetic screen in several model organisms using CRISPR/Cas9, finally discuss on its future challenges and opportunities.

[Differential expressions of miRNAs in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation].

OBJECTIVE: To detect the differential expressions of miRNAs in left atrial appendage (LAA) in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS: Left atrial samples were collected from nonvalvular AF patients and healthy controls. The miRNA transcriptome was analyzed by microarray and verified by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Computational prediction identified the AF-related miRNAs and its target gene. In the meantime, construction of reporter plasmids and reporter assays were performed to test whether miRNA could represses the Luciferase activity of 3' untranslated regions of its target gene. RESULTS: MiR-155, miR-142-3p, miR-19b, miR-223, miR-146b-5p, miR-486-5p, miR-301b, miR-193b, miR-519b were found to be up-regulated by > 2 folds whereas miR-193a-5p was down-regulated. In particular, the level of miR-155 increased by 5.78 folds in AF patients versus healthy controls (9.42 ± 4.74 vs 1.63 ± 0.65). Furthermore, computational prediction identified CACNA1C encoding Cav1.2 as a direct target of miR-155. In the meantime, the construction of reporter plasmids and reporter assays showed that miR-155 repressed the Luciferase activity of 3' untranslated regions of CACNA1C. CONCLUSION: In LAA sample of nonvalvular AF, there is an expression of AF-related miRNAs including miR-155. And it reveals a potential link between the regulation of Cav1.2 and miR-155 in electric remodeling of AF.